Reset all votes on a content type every week

Question

I am trying to build a website where people vote on individual nodes of a content type using the rate module. Is it possible to reset these votes say every 7 days or every 30 days, so that another round of voting can take place. How would I do this within drupal. I do not want to have to go through phpmyadmin to clear the voting api cache. I would prefer if this is done from within the website I'm building.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

There's many ways to accomplish this. The voting data for the Voting API module is stored in the votingapi_vote & votingapi_cache tables. Essentially, you need a way to target the vote data you wish to eliminate in these tables (e.g. via a DB query) and then build some process on which to regularly execute it (e.g. a cron run).

A crude example would be a custom module that evokes hook_cron() to check the last query execution and fire it if it hits its time threshold:

/**
 * Implements hook_cron().
 */
function MYMODULE_cron() {

  // Clear the vote every week.
  $vote_clear_timestamp = variable_get('MYMODULE_vote_clear_timestamp', 0);
  if ($vote_clear_timestamp <= strtotime('-1 week')) {

    // A more targeted process would use db_delete() to target criteria
    db_query("TRUNCATE {votingapi_vote}");
    db_query("TRUNCATE {votingapi_cache}");
    variable_set('MYMODULE_vote_clear_timestamp', time());
  }
}